Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice
by Hatsu Yukiya
Summary: The story where Vanellope discovers her hideout for the first time and makes it her home. A useless, unfinished glitch living out her existence in a useless, unfinished level? That seems about right.


** I imagine this takes place just a few days after Turbo took over Sugar Rush, so the game hasn't been hacked for very long. But, naturally, as the citizens' memories were wiped, they don't remember this. That said, I believe that Vanellope would have had a bit of trouble...**_**adjusting**_** to her situation. I mean, I doubt she was so laid-back (as much as a façade as it was) about the bullying when it first started. **

** Check out the sweet Adventure Time reference later. Hehehe, Candy Kingdom.**

**Please enjoy :D**

** ~X~**

Ah, yes. There they were. Vanellope rolled her eyes exasperatedly as she watched the cloud of brown-sugar dust rise in the distance, the image accompanied by the sound of racers' kart engines. She swept a lock of dark hair behind her ear, knowing it would be useless to run at this point. As if she could outrun Taffyta's pathetic little gang. Jeez, they thought they were so cool just because they could race. Vanellope knew she could be just as awesome as them if they gave her a chance.

Her outline blurred a bit at the stab of irritation, but Vanellope ignored it, crossing her arms and donning what was hopefully a bored expression. Taffyta and her groupies sped every closer, until eventually they encircled the girl entirely and cut off their engines.

"What's _that _look for?" Taffyta sneered the instant she got her helmet off. "What are you doing, looking so superior?"

Vanellope chose wisely to remain silent. She had had a rather disappointing day, and really wasn't in the mood for smartmouthing the racers. Unless they really, really pushed it, of course.

They pushed it.

"We heard you tried to get into the castle today to talk to the Candy King," Candlehead snickered, covering her mouth to stifle a sudden snort, "Something about getting a gold coin?"

"Supposedly, he had the donut guards toss her away without even bothering to see her," Taffyta mock-whispered to her friends, who broke out into a refreshed set of giggles. "Who was she kidding? She's just a pathetic little glitch, after all. It's impossible for her to be a racer."

"That's not true!" Vanellope spoke up suddenly, balling her fists. "I can be a racer! You're just too thick-skulled to see it!"

There was a beat of stunned silence; Taffyta clearly hadn't expected her to actually defend herself. Then, she let out a disbelieving, high-pitch chortle that turned into full-on laughter. The other girls mimicked the sound, a few clutching their sides.

Taffyta wiped away a few tears of mirth, steadying her breath. "I'm sorry; it gets funnier every time you say that."

"It's true!" Vanellope insisted, glaring. "Clearly the fumes from your ridiculous karts are getting to your head. I could be the best racer in Sugar Rush. I can feel it in my code."

The white-haired girl snorted, sharing a can-you-believe-this look with the other racers. "Look sweetheart, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but what code? You were never supposed to exist! You're a total mistake! Just look at the way you glitch out. It's no wonder that His Highness doesn't want you to compete, you'd just embarrass the rest of us!"

"That's a lie!" Vanellope snapped, stamping her foot. She hadn't yet learned to deal with situations through humor and sarcasm, and had a difficult time suppressing the fury that rose up every time the racers came within a ten-foot radius of her. "If I wasn't supposed to be here, then I wouldn't be! I am _not_ a glitch!"

Of course, the system _had_ to decide that this was the perfect moment to prove her wrong. On the word _glitch,_ Vanellope's code spazzed out, causing her to blur spastically and pronounce the word _g-li-i-i-t-ch-ch. _This, naturally, caused Taffyta and her friends to break down into helpless laughter again. A couple collapsed to their knees, unable to stand at the amount of humor they found in the situation.

"L-Look at her!" Taffyta gasped, pointing a shaking hand in Vanellope's direction, face red as a tomato. "I-I can't even... Vanellope von Sweetz, the glitch in denial! The mistake who thinks she's as good as the rest of us!"

They laughed even harder at that. Mortified and furious, Vanellope knew she could just turn around and walk away, maybe crack a few more jokes about the air between Taffyta's ears, and just let the situation lie.

And then what? Wait for it to start over again, wait for the whole process to be repeated? That was not how Vanellope wanted to live. And frankly, at the moment, she had a whole lot of steam to vent. Between her disappointment at the Candy King's rejection and the harassment from Taffyta and her gang, there weren't a whole lot of good feelings stewing around in her tiny little body. Everyone has a breaking point.

Taffyta was within arm's reach. All Vanellope really had to do was reach out with a sufficient amount of force... and she did so.

With no time to react, Taffyta found herself shoved backwards into a chocolate puddle.

The laughter ceased immediately, all the racers looking from Vanellope to Taffyta in bewilderment. All of them had a similar look of horror and awe on their faces as, spluttering, Taffyta eased herself into a sitting position, but nobody moved to help her up.

Vanellope figured she would take advantage of their momentary distraction to high-tail her molasses out of this situation. Naturally, she turned and ran as fast as her legs could carry her. From behind her, she could hear Taffyta's enraged shriek, the order to drive after her, and the sounds of the kart engines revving up. She picked up her pace and headed into the gorge, it being the nearest escape she could think of.

She did not consider the fact that the gorge was more-or-less a straight line with nowhere to hide and walls far too tall to climb. Vanellope risked a glance over her shoulder, and was startled when she saw how much ground the racers had gained on her already.

_Well duh_, she thought to herself, _they're on karts and you're running._ _No offense kiddo, but you're out of shape._

Vanellope looked forward again. There really was nowhere to go, unless she wanted to run splat into a rock-candy wall. There were really only two options: the former, or be caught by Taffyta and have her face mutilated into Glob-knows-what. The grotesque image popped into her head, taking her attention away from the road for a split second. She grimaced, and blinked a bit to get dust out of her eyes...

Aaaand she was going to run into a wall. Looked like fate was picking her path for her. Vanellope could only curse inwardly as she squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for an impact that never came.

Wait, what?

Vanellope cracked her eyes open, only seeing a reddish sort of darkness. It looked like she was in a cave of some sort cave, though the cave itself didn't have an opening. Outside, through the wall, she could hear Taffyta demand, "Where did she go?! Did anyone see her?!" The other girls gave a unanimously negative answer, and the white-haired girl let out an infuriated screech before kicking her kart into high gear and driving away at full speed, the others following.

Vanellope stood in the cave with bated breath, waiting for any sound of a return. When there was none, she approached the far wall of the cave nervously. It looked solid enough, but one could never be too sure. She had just apparently gone barreling through it, after all. She reached out a hesitant hand, and withdrew with a startled yelp when the wall glitched the way she did upon impact.

She drew in a light breath and turned to face behind her. The cave extended quite a ways, further back than she had imagined, twisting its way into formidable darkness. Surely there couldn't be anything in there that could hurt a poor, defenseless nine-year-old glitch, right? Well, there was only one way to find out. Vanellope made her way tentatively down the corridor, grateful that the lighting seemed to improve the further in she went.

Eventually, she found herself in a vast cavern that seemed to be taken up mostly by a vat—no, lake—of a brown, bubbling substance. One quick taste told her diet cola, and a look up to the ceiling revealed Mentos stalactites. They looked dangerously unstable.

"Ick," Vanellope said aloud, wrinkling her nose, "I can taste the boiling diabetes from here. What kind of place is this?"

There was a broken, rusty track around the perimeter, and Vanellope had the answer to her question within moments. A dummied-out level. Somehow she'd managed to find it. Judging from the soda and Mentos, it was going to be a pretty difficult level. Maybe one you needed a code to get to, if the location of the place was anything to go by.

In the corner of the cavern, something caught her eye. A sponge cake bed, and a few empty wrappers for the Mentos overhead. Vanellope made her way over to the area and felt the cake, giggling when her hand sunk in a few inches. She backed away a ways and did a flying leap onto the squishy mass, laughing out loud at the sensation.

She sighed heavily, the elation wearing off. So this place was abandoned just like her, huh? That was nice.

Hm. Maybe it was. Nobody else knew about this level, so she'd have a nice little hideout in case Taffyta went on a rampage or she needed to hide from the donut police after stealing food. Not to mention it came with a ready-made bed with blankets—Vanellope grabbed the wrappers and snuggled into them—so what was the big deal? She wasn't trespassing, and it wasn't like she had a place to go home to anyway. _And maybe..._a small smile crossed her face, _maybe I could build a kart here, in a place where nobody could see and wreck it._

Yeah, this could work. In her opinion, it was pretty much perfect.


End file.
